As CEO/Founder of any startup, you may not be the lead developer on your product or app, but you do have to be able to have somewhat technical conversations with investors, interviewees, etc. All founders have wear many different hats and perform multiple different roles. This deck focuses on the landscape of Mobile as it is today focusing on three major platforms, Android, IOS, and Windows. We will take a look at building both native applications and cross-platform applications along with relevant tools and skills needed for both.

1. James Quick
@jamesqquick

2. • Tell me about you!
• What Makes an App Successful
• How to Build
• Next Steps
Agenda

3. Background Product Plan
I Want to Know About Your…

4. Who’s your Target?
Consumer Commercial

7. UI/UX Device Features Connectedness
What Makes A Mobile Application Successful?

8. Are you gaging your
application against successful
competitors?

9. Does it
work on all
of these?

10. Mobile Platforms and Tools

13. Monetization
In App Purchases
• Extra features
• Powerups/Lives
Sell your App
• Apple App Store
• Google Play
• Windows Store
Ads
• Iad Workbench
• AdMob
• PubCenter

14. Cross Platform with Web

15. What’s the difference between
a Website and a Mobile
Application?

16. What’s the difference between
a Website and a Web App?

17. Every Website CAN be a Mobile Application!

19. •
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

20. Cross Platform with Xamarin

21. Silo
Approach:
Build the Same
Apps Multiple
Times

22. Xamarin’s Unique Approach
Shared C# codebase • 100% native API access • High performance
iOS C# UI Windows C# UIAndroid C# UI
Shared C# Mobile C# Server
Linux/Mono
CoreCLRAzure
Shared C# Client/Server

23. Windows APIs
Microsoft.Phone Microsoft.Networking Windows.Storage Windows.Foundation Microsoft.Devices
System.Data System.Windows System.Numerics System.Core System.ServiceModel
System.Net System System.IO System.Linq System.Xml
C#

24. iOS – 100% API Coverage
MapKit UIKit iBeacon CoreGraphics CoreMotion
System.Data System.Windows System.Numerics System.Core System.ServiceModel
System.Net System System.IO System.Linq System.Xml
C#

25. Android – 100% API Coverage
Text-to-speech ActionBar Printing Framework Renderscript NFC
System.Data System.Windows System.Numerics System.Core System.ServiceModel
System.Net System System.IO System.Linq System.Xml
C#

27. All 3 characteristics are required for a truly native app
Xamarin is native in all 3 ways
Native User Interface
Apps are built with standard, native
user interface controls for easy and
familiar interactions
Apps have access to the full spectrum of
functionality exposed by the underlying
platform and device
Apps leverage platform-specific hardware
acceleration, and are compiled as native
binaries, not interpreted at runtime.
High-fidelity API Access
Native Performance

28. Development Environment
Xamarin Studio
PC or Mac
Visual Studio Plugin
VS 2010/2012/2013/2015

30. Native Dev: Platform Tools or Xamarin?
Platform Tools (Windows, iOS, Android)
• Default native method to build apps
• Free development tools & SDKs
• Requires learning at least one language &
SDK per platform (C#, Java, Objective-C)
• Design, develop & maintain completely
separate apps for each platform
• More learning resources available
• Books, web sites, blogs, training,
StackOverflow, videos, larger community,
etc.
• Yet, iOS developers are (kinda) starting all
over with Swift
Xamarin / Mono
• Reuse existing C# skills & source code (but
you have to know C#)
• Need to buy an additional tool: extra cost
• Need to learn new tools & techniques
• Still need to learn the specifics of each
platform SDK, app architecture & lifecycle
• Fewer third-party libraries available
• Built-in GUI designer for iOS and Android
• Xamarin.Forms provides native shared Uis,
but there is no XAML designer (yet)
• Vendor lock-in / dependency

31. 

http://channel9.msdn.com/events/Build/2015/3-770

http://aka.ms/ch9xam2015-1

http://aka.ms/ch9xam2015-2

http://aka.ms/ch9xam2015-3

http://aka.ms/ch9xam2015-4

http://channel9.msdn.com/Search?term=xamarin#ch9Search&lang-en=en
Xamarin Videos for Developers

32. 
 http://xamarin.com/download

 http://docs.xamarin.com

 http://evolve.xamarin.com

 http://xamarin.com/university

 http://blog.xamarin.com

 http://motzcod.es

 http://weblogs.asp.net/wallym

 http://www.gregshackles.com
Xamarin Resources

35. What does “The Cloud” mean
to you?

37. 3
Mobile Apps Overview
Windows 10
iOS
Android
HTML5/JS
SDKs
Scripts:
table
scheduled
custom API
REST API
Facebook Twitter Microsoft Google
Active
Directory
SQL
Table
Storage
Blob
Storage
WNS &
MPNS APNS GCM
Mongo
DB
Notification
Hubs
Source
Control

38. Prototyping

43. Lean startup

48. Choosing a Technical co-Founder for your Tech
Startup
What you/they need to bring:
Hands-on technical / design
skills relevant to the business
Domain-specific expertise &
industry connections
Business management, sales &
accounting skills
Startup experience
What isn’t enough:
Ideas
Money
(that's called an investor)
Time & good intentions

51. • Apply

52. • Visual Studio Enterprise Edition
• Office 365 Subscription
• Windows licenses
• Server software licenses
• All licenses are yours to keep
• No commitment to buy
aka.ms/bizsparkapply

53. How to Sign up for
BizSpark?

54. https://channel9.msdn.com
Free Online Learning
https://mva.microsoft.com
Sessions on Demand

55. Additional Resources
Online
Udemy
Udacity
PluralSight
Lynda
Code Academy
Other Forms
Meetup Groups
Hackathons
Competitions
NYU Classes

56. Email:
jaquick@Microsoft.com
Twitter:
@jamesqquick